Achieving Nothingness
by narrizan
Summary: Following prompts by D. Gray-man Hallow! Countdown on tumblr. Happy 4th July peeps! Happy DGMHallowday! Regular disclaimers apply, don't own, not for profit, for fun only. Musings during incarceration. Lavi, Bookman Junior, Bookman, and if Kanda appears it's because he's part of Lavi's subliminal consciousness. Hope someone out there likes it, somewhat.


Deception:

Abilities:

He is more than proficient. After all he's had forty-eight runs to perfect his methodology. He's got it down pat, when he laughs, smiles and drapes an arm around a comrade. His eye a mirror and not any window to a discernible soul - no heart. It's quite the trick to have a heartbeat without one, but it is a layered effort, so he manages to breathe without seeming to. His core is secret to him alone, after years of learning subterfuge and stratagem, even Bookman is uncertain as to how much he can ascertain where his disciple begins and ends.

Innocence:

Bestowed upon him by Hevlaska his Iron hammer. The power seals of Fire, Heaven and Wood, to have elements of Nature at his beck and call. To protect and to bring down havoc. How did Bookman know to come to the Black Order and know of their compatibility as accommodators for Innocences that would better serve others? That his own Innocence is not innocuous, does not sit well with him, For the first time they are recording as soldiers in a war. Not from sitting on high, balanced on a fence, they have chosen a side. Knowingly, without innocence.

Illusions:

Junior thinks to fool with illusions and wonders if the other is privy to his obliviousness. He watches, that mouth that curves a touch too deep, the crinkle round the eyes that is not real laughter and the eye that reflects too brightly. If riles him because he is the same. Just day to his night. Dark, storming and keeping at (sword)arm's length apart instead of drawing them close with promises of friendship. Fear and the cross purposes of want and not an odd fitting of two halves, he muses and wonders if he is as transparent. His disillusionment.

Persecution

Black Order:

He opines that the Black Order is good at turning upon their own, no exceptions. In the name of humanity and their war. They paint the other side black, o the irony. Their soldiers wielding Innocence, cleaving their own lives, souls, hopes and dreams from themselves. The Order forsaking them to leave their corp fading in time and meaning naught to anyone a millennia from now. He records this for posterity and any accounts of his present persona that swirls within the statistics next to the others is an inadvertent in-joke to himself as he too fades from their side.

Noah:

Road shows him the error of his ways - neither fully Bookman, because damn he does have a heart. Nor, completely exorcist. His training too ingrained to forsake his tenets as a Bookman entirely. However, with complete impartiality he concludes as Allen Walker does that Noah are humans in need of saving. As Kanda believes they are not undefeatable - they just have not met Kanda yet. Road with her fixation with Allen, Tykki's foolishness to think that he could sit on the fence of his Dark and Light side, any more than Lavi can with his duality as Bookman and exorcist.

Beliefs:

His mind lets go. Everything, all forty-nine of his selves. Even the center of his beliefs. Easier to cope with torture this way. If you have nothing, nothing can be taken away. This is what he clings on to. He does not cling to any hope that he might regain it. Hope can be taken away- too. Of course the pain is real, and nothing can take that away. So he files (files?) the pain, because he can start again, with pain. Vessel of pain that he is now, how can he hope to fill it. Will he start anew?

Famine: Favourite Foods

In that space between the tortures, the hunger he feels borders on ridiculous. They are barely keeping him alive with water - just enough, and food - if you want to call it that. He tries to recall his favourite foods but can only see Kanda eating soba three times a day, he sees Allen eating his way through twenty sticks of mitarashi-dango and even Bookman gleefully going for pudding child-like - it is mango-flavoured. A hunger of his mind, crying out for their snipes, smiles and admonishment. In that space between the hysterics, is the clarity that he is craving something lost.

Death: Last Words & Goodbyes

Death of the mind, of the heart. Road said that time he played in her dream-reality? The emergence of his true self she said. It was just the of the persona before Lavi - Deak. Jaded and impugned with a self righteous pride. When his youngest asked when he started questioning the code, the answer opened up before him … that he'd been asking since his first battle. Bookman, his wily elder, managed to evade the truly important questions. They've only broken his body, He has not said his last words, he is far from finished and refuses to say goodbye.

Martyrology: Sacrifice & Resolution

When the Noah take them, he wonders why? At the edge of consciousness he learns of the death of a previous Junior, of Bookman being on Noah's side. He wonders if he is the sacrifice, a piece of leverage against a barrage of questions that Senior is resolute against answering.

It is stalemate. Bookman, certain that the Noah will yet keep them alive, because they too know that the knowledge they posses is precious and do not wish to see that knowledge go to a grave undisclosed. Not even (he prays fervently) the death of the present Junior.

Tribulation: The Emotions in those Sad Moments

At the edge of consciousness in that space between nothingness and pain - his musings are snatches of thought, fleeting and ephemeral. He thinks of Kanda and his spite and snipes to hide a lifetime of shame, guilt, a deep longing, hurt and want so rooted. He thinks of shining sun-bright Allen taking the burden of the world's ills on his very young shoulders and of Leenalee as she watches her family grow, shrink, uproot and resettle.

He reckons that first chinks are Leenalee's tears in the midst of a funeral that first day. The next few chips are when Kanda does not decapitate after calling him Yuu, when he knows he pushes on purpose, the look hard, deep and unyielding. A big thunk of wall falls in his anguish when he takes down blunt, honest Doug in a mire of grief and hopelessness. He wonders if his pain will counts against theirs, will he be found wanting and will he be good enough to truly count himself comrade-in-arms. At the edge of consciousness, in that space between nothingness and pain - he feels everything and the rush of emotions just add to the pain and he wants it to end, end. END.

Rapture: Happy Moments of Love of Friendship

End … end … and end. It is year on year at the Black Order and snatches of pain give way to those little rejoices. Johnny's eyes as they shine at the thought of making him a uniform, when he colludes with Kanda to call Allen beansprout (unspoken agreements borne from familiarity and friendship), the relief he feels when he decides and makes that choice that he is a comrade, that he is worthy of their love, their trust, their friendship. O so long ago now in the Ark. That good feeling, regardless of what Gramps will say. That peace.

New World: Hallow!/Free

Peace in that space between, at the edge of consciousness. The nothingness is brittle, skittering in a myriad of colours and broken shards and it does not matter any more if no one comes for him, it does not matter if his last words are not to those they are truly for. The years at the order give him a world of home, no one is taking away and if by some miracle he wrests himself free and returns to himself or not as himself, it is a new world and he will manage. He hopes the others will too.

FIN


End file.
